Before I Fall
by Flyxit
Summary: Reality is a bitter foe, who hath no regard for the sorrow it sows. OC
1. Dreams

**Prologue: Dreams**

* * *

Dreams are curious things.

We need them. We rely on them. Dreams drive us – they give us something for which to live. Regardless of whether we are conscious of it or not, regardless of whether we have discovered it or not, we all have a dream. We all exist for something.

But that which makes us stronger can also break us. The staple of our lives can also be our weakness, our most vulnerable point, the stitch in our bindings that can come loose and force us to fall apart. Our dreams can be catalysts of our deaths just as easily as they can bring us hope or faith.

We are often told to chase our dreams, no matter the cost. We are told that no dream is impossible, that no yearning is unreasonable, that no goal is unreachable, that no ambition is unattainable. We are told that we can do anything we set our minds to. That we are capable of anything, so long as we have the will and the drive and the dream.

We are told lies.

* * *

_6-1-12_


	2. Maybe

**Prologue 2: Maybe**

* * *

Maybe I deserved it.

I won't lie to myself; I know that I had never resembled anything close to a saint. I suppose a polite way of putting it would be to call me driven; but conceited and selfish and arrogant would be far more accurate. Those dreams of mine left me under the dangerous illusion that I was untouchable, that the world was on my side and that it would not stop until it saw those dreams of mine fulfilled.

So I pushed. I pushed myself, past the limits of what everyone thought I should have been capable of, including myself. I pushed those around me, past the limits of what they should have been able to bear, in their patience and their tolerance. And I pushed the world, past the limits of what my luck should have allowed.

I knocked away obstacles like the broken toys of children. Opposition meant nothing to me; I'd be damned if anything stood in my way – in the way of my dreams. Anyone who dared defied me was thrown aside like a forgotten plaything if they did not retreat quickly enough.

So yes, maybe I did deserve it.

Maybe I got what was coming to me.

* * *

_6-1-12_


	3. Legacy

**Prologue 3: Legacy**

* * *

But it's not as if I was alone.

The person that stared me down in the mirror each day didn't appear overnight. I alone didn't sculpt her stony features. She had been a masterpiece, shaped and carved and molded by the hands and tongues and words of many.

They had sketched her, laid out a rough draft to review, revise, to edit. They had erased imperfect lines and smoothed out sharp edges. Then they brought her to life and coaxed her into the press, where she was pounded out into cookie-cutter pieces, lacquered, and then set out to dry in the sun.

They had made her their legacy.

I made her their shame.

* * *

_6-1-12_


	4. Foundations

**Prologue 4: Foundations**

* * *

I can't say I didn't go along willingly.

They whispered sweet things in my ear, promises of greatness and promises of fame. They formed an alliance with me. I was drawn into their circle, one of their creations and one of them. Their dreams became my dreams; their goals became my own. My life was not of my own assembly, but theirs.

But that was fine. It was preferred. If their plans benefited me, why should I second guess them? If their promises were of greatness and fame, why not believe them? If their alliance kept me high and weightless, why not be drawn in?

They made me strong. They made me great. They made me powerful. And when all that was done, they made me stronger yet. Greater yet. Yet more powerful. Upon the foundations they built a towering empire, just as they promised they would.

But under the strain of that empire, the foundations cracked. They crumbled.

And I fell.

* * *

_6-1-12_

I don't usually do four-part prologues... 

_But I thought it fit the story a little better._


	5. Anarchy

**Anarchy**

* * *

I am drowning.

The world is heavy and thick around me, and it smothers me. My eyelids are shut, sewn shut so that I cannot open them to see. My arms are weights, lying dead at my sides. I have sunken to the bottom of a great lake, and the rocks are jutting into my back. I might be dead.

But the water doesn't feel like water ought to. It feels like cotton, and I am wrapped up and in it I cannot move. And I am trying to fight against it, trying to tear it away with my hands, but they are like rocks and they will not move. My body will not obey me.

Anarchy, it cries.

* * *

_6-2-12_


	6. Dead

**Dead**

* * *

I am growing impatient.

This strange state of drowning is no longer new to me, is no longer a novelty. It bores me. My body has shackled itself to the bottom of this lake and I have grown tired of being angry at it. Resignation has taken the place of my confusion and panic.

If this is the afterlife, then I curse myself for wishing I were dead. I could never have guessed that the next realm would be this blank, sightless world. I had always assumed that there would be two definite places I would end up – one of them full of pain and fire. Perhaps the gods are punishing me for assuming anything.

Even so, surely this cannot be all there is. Not this drowning that doesn't feel like drowning in the water that doesn't feel like water. But perhaps I am wrong again, and the world heard my prayers.

Perhaps I am dead.

* * *

_6-2-12_


	7. Resurfacing

**Resurfacing**

* * *

I am being pulled.

It is a rushing feeling, like strings have been tied to my arms and legs and I am being hauled to the surface. It is the feeling one gets when they are falling, only reversed, like I am falling upwards. It is the feeling of waking from a long sleep, and the constriction in my lungs has been released and I can finally breath without the cotton filling my throat and choking me.

My skin crawls and my stomach lurches. The numbness of the drowning falls away all at once and pain sears through me like a white-hot poker. My limbs are stiff, like I've been encased in ice. My skin feels raw and tight, as if it has been stretched too thin to cover my bones. A persistent ache throbs behind my eyes like needles pricking at my brain. A groan stirs somewhere deep in my chest and my head pounds with the unfamiliar drum of my heart.

I am not dead.

I am alive and I am resurfacing.

* * *

_6-2-12_


	8. Honey

The room is white, entirely white. And I recognize it.

A hospital room.

I'm laying in a bed, with stiff white sheets tucked around me like restraining binds. And all at once, I feel suffocated. The breath has been stolen from my lungs, and the air around me is toxic with sterilizing alcohol and soap and the stench of the death and disease around me. The blank palette of the room is too bright, assaulting my eyes like the sun against a mirror.

A strangled gasp escapes my lips, and a whimper follows. My head feels too full, like my thoughts are crowding my brain and each one is demanding its complete focus. But my brain hasn't been engaged in so long, and it feels like a bridge that is missing a strut and is threatening to crumble under the strain. After being trapped in impenetrable silence for ages, the clamor is deafening.

The world around me is warped and out of focus. It is as if my mind is unsure of what to pay attention to first, and has settled for letting everything in all at once. Words and images and sounds bounce around in my head like pests that refuse to die off.

But they all turn mute at once, with the opening of the hospital room door.

And suddenly it's like the elastic of my mind has been snapped back into place, as if before it had simply been stretched too far. My eyes settle on the door, on the soft face that has appeared there.

It's a woman, older than me, I think. Her hair is dark and has been pulled back into a tight, orderly bun. She wears her crisp, starched nurse's uniform like she is expecting to meet with the commander of the army and must pass an inspection. When she walks across the room to my bedside, it is with stiff strides, vaguely like a military march.

When she clears her throat, I am fully prepared for the bark of one of those strict bullhorn military women that are used to fighting tooth and nail for respect. I am surprised with a voice like melted butter or honey, soft and welcoming and maybe a little timid.

"I'm glad to see you're awake, Torunto-san," she says, smiling a warm smile that takes me again by surprise. "How are you feeling?"

Confused.

"Where am I?" I ask, wincing at the way the words scrape the walls of my throat on the way out.

"Konohagakure General Hospital," she answers patiently, tucking a rebellious strand of hair back into her bun. "How are you feeling?"

Very confused.

Bewilderment forces my tongue to voice my head's curiosities, and suddenly questions are spilling past my lips and are firing like bullets, painful in my throat but unstoppable just the same. I'm glancing around the room wildly as they spew from me like blood from an open wound. "W-what happened? How did I get... here? What time is it? Wh-where's the rest of my team?"

The nurse smiles again, but her face darkens with sadness and maybe something like pity. It makes my eyes burn like there's acid in the air. Her grip on the file shifts as she answers me in that smooth voice with a response that makes my head swim.

"I can think of a few better people to answer that question for you, Torunto-san. I'll go get them really quickly, okay? I'll be back in just a few moments." With that, she slips out of the room and into the hallway beyond, taking with her any semblance of calmness in my mind.

Thoughts begin firing off once again, some accompanied by memories that make my nerves jump in my body and my heart sputter. The walls seem to darken and shift closer, tremble and sway like the branches of trees, greedily reaching for me. The blankets constrict around me like a snake squeezing the life from my lungs. My entire body aches and shrieks, a great and terrible throbbing pain seizing me in waves.

And then the room's door opens again and the feeling is gone. The nurse steps clear once more, only this time two others follow her. They stop to form a half-circle around the bed, three faces peering down at me as if I am some rare specimen to be examined beneath a microscope. The feeling is oddly and startlingly familiar, but the sense of déjà vu passes almost as quickly as it came. Besides the nurse, there is only one woman. She is tall, taller than the two others. Her age is betrayed by her tired and wrinkled face and the stringy, gray hair that brushes her shoulders. Her face is stern and her jaw set in what seems to be a permanent clench.

I recognize her.

She is Yaito Yuuka, head of the hospital. Even as this information comes to me, I cannot place why or how I know who she is. The knowledge simply surfaces, presents itself, then disappears, and I am left with a name and a title.

My attention turns to the only man in the room, a rather short, dark-haired man with a pinched face. He peers back at me as if searching for something in my eyes, before tittering and glancing down at the open file in his arms. Then he looks back up at me, his squinted eyes seeming to move in and out of focus.

"Hello," he says shortly, in a fidgety sort of way; the way I'd imagine an insect would speak, if it could. "My name is Doctor Akiyoshi, I'm in charge of your care here. Can you tell me your name?"

I can't seem to find my voice, like it's lost somewhere in my throat. I stare at the man for a few moments before clearing my throat and drawing my words back into my grasp.

"Akari," I manage, giving a small cough as my name wheezes past my lips. "Torunto Akari."

Akiyoshi nods in approval, looking down at his clipboard again. "And your age?"

"I –" I stop, suddenly winded. There's a thick, muggy feeling that lingers in my chest, the same sort of feeling one gets when they miss a stair, or when one stands suddenly and the world seems to sway around them. My next words are a startling realization, one that frightens me beyond compare. "I don't remember."

The doctor hums, a low, guttural sound from somewhere in the back of his throat. "Can you tell me the names of your parents?"

"Hotaru and Kohei."

"Siblings?"

"Uh, two, Kokoa and Wataru."

"Very good," Akiyoshi says, sharing a guarded look with Yaito Yuuka. It makes me feel small, like a child about to be lectured by her parents. But now does not seem to be the time for a lecture, because Yaito Yuuka gives a subtle shake of her head, and the doctor's squashed face takes on an expression of resignation.

He excuses himself, expressing his happiness at my awakening and his best wishes for my recovery, before slipping from the room, Yaito Yuuka in tow. The bun-headed nurse stays behind, hovering by my bedside with the same piteous look in her eye that she'd had before.

She sits in a stiff chair by my side for a while, and the air grows heavy with the pregnant silence. My thoughts march on, each one of them darker than the last. There are flashes of something I can't quite place that drift in an out of my mind. They feel a little like memories. They feel a lot like pain. But none of them are completely whole, none completely intact. They are mere fragments of the past, pieces of a puzzle I can't seem to fit together quite yet.

"Why am I here?"

I only realize I've spoken after the worlds are already in the open.

I've startled the nurse, who jerks as if woken from a dream. She looks at me warily, as if afraid of the question I've asked of her. I suppose I'm a little afraid of it, as well.

"You were... injured, unwell," she answers me carefully, but I get the impression she's holding something back. This irritates me more than it probably should. If I was injured, shouldn't I know how? Or why? Shouldn't I have _some_ recollection of how I came to be swathed in sterile white blankets on a hospital bed? And shouldn't the nurses and doctors be more forthcoming in their explanations?

"Clearly," I bite, flashing the nurse a scornful look. "How was I injured?"

"I – I don't think I'm supposed to say," she says quietly, looking meekly down at her hands. "The doctor doesn't believe you're quite ready to know."

"Not ready to know?" I hiss incredulously, spitting the words like poison from my mouth. "I think I have every right to know what's happened to me, regardless of whether the damned _doctor_ believes I'm _ready_!"

"I'm sorry," she whispers, eyes still fixed on her lap. "Truly I am."

My gaze softens, and my anger curbs. I look down at my own hands, swathed in bandages and wish suddenly that I can take back the venom in my words, seeing its effect on the honey-voiced nurse beside me. Perhaps it isn't her fault. But the anger is still there, even if it is muted. Who should decide whether I should know what's befallen me, who besides myself? Certainly not some snot-nosed doctor with pudgy fingers and a wheezy voice.

"When do you think I'll be... ready?" I ask softly, watching her expression carefully as she tilts her head to look up at me. Her eyes seem to shine suddenly, a little sliver of hope catching the light and making the brown depths come alive. She gives a small, reassuring smile and nod as she answers me.

"Soon."

And so I wait.


End file.
